Apple Business Connect
Earlier this year, Apple announced the launch of Apple Business Connect, a free web-based tool that allows businesses of all sizes to customise the way their information appears across Apple apps. This means that now brands will have more control of the information published to their Apple Maps listings and will also benefit from new features being introduced by Apple.
Why is it important for businesses?
Apple Business Connect makes it easy for customers to find your business using Apple Maps. It allows businesses to take control of how their business is seen as well as create a place card that is accessible to everyone around the world who uses Apple devices and built-in apps — with directions, contact information, and actions built right in. On top of this, appearing on Apple Maps has a direct influence on a business’s SEO (search engine optimization), which means that it can help businesses rank higher on search engines.
In a nutshell, Apple Business Connect will help businesses reach more potential customers online and attract them to their physical stores.
Apple Business Connect features
- Control how people see your business: Claim, manage and keep up to date your Apple Maps place cards. This includes adding and updating hours, addresses, phone number, website, logos, header images, etc across Apple Maps, Messages, Wallet, Siri, and other apps.
- Share limited-time offers and announcements (showcase posting): Allows businesses to share with customers timely offers, promotions, and seasonal products. This feature is currently available only in some regions, though it is expected to soon be available globally.
- Encourage customers to take action: Another highlight includes action links so that customers can easily engage with your business. Some of these quick actions include links to order food, book a reservation, schedule an appointment or purchase tickets, to mention a few.
- Performance insights data: See how your profiles are performing on Apple Maps.
Localistico x Apple Business Connect
Until now, the only way for brands to submit information to Apple Maps was using a partner like Localistico. The way data got shared, was using a file-based feed that was refreshed periodically, but that had drawbacks such as giving little visibility to the business about status of publication, and only allowing editing of a reduced number of fields compared to other platforms. With this new API integration, brands will be able to access the Apple Business Connect features from the Localistico platform and use them at scale. In Localistico you will be able to;
- Publish your location information to Apple Maps
- Discover and view Apple Maps profiles alongside the profiles from your other enabled platforms
- From the metrics tab, view performance metrics including impressions and clicks
From the promotions tab, post to Apple Maps using showcase posting
What next?
In order to take advantage of Apple Business Connect, brands should create their own Business Connect account. Please refer to this help centre article for a step by step guide on how to get started.
If you chose not to create an Apple Business Connect account, Localistico will continue to publish your location data to Apple Maps however, you will not be able to access premium features such as insights or posting. Via this route, your data will also not be given priority and data from different online sources will also be used by Apple to update maps.
For a more in depth breakdown of Apple Maps place cards please read our help centre article.